Those Who Forget…
by Heterica's Oldaccount.hacked
Summary: We were great. We were strong. Then, basic needs ran out. Chaos. Panic. Everything gone up in flames. One-Shot. I don't like these to be long, so I had to strain to get it up to 1500 words.


A bloodbath… a bloodbath, that's what it was. Sadness overtakes me as I write this. There are one thousand and seventy cats dead. The number has relatively panned out. How did this happen? I'll give you a little background.

Moons after Firestar's death in ancient times, the population exploded. The Clans expanded much further. ThunderClan, the biggest, had or so at it's peak. The food was plenty until then. Chaos ensued. Goldenstar, the leader of ThunderClan, told everyone that if they stayed united, everything would be fine. The other three leaders agreed.

However, a more popular group, the Red Claws, was founded to combat this. It started with small things. One queen's den would be ransacked, an elder mysteriously dying. Then, it grew. All of a sudden, in a place called fallen pines, the first battle ensued.

Four warriors were guarding a queen's den. I was one of them. This is my story.

I was pretty relaxed that day. I noticed some rustlings and rumors of Red Claw activity were in the air, but nothing big. I talked to one of the queens there, Ravensong. She had most beautiful dark grey pelt. She was a younger queen, fifteen moons. Her kits were supposed to come three days later.

She said to me "hello Thornwhisker".

I replied "hello".

She smiled at me. If only I had my eye on her first. To bad she had a mate. I was hungry, and I remember there was no prey that day. For the last time I can remember. She had food, that was the reason for the Red Claw's rebellion.

I went to the dirtplace. I came back, and then I saw them: the Red Claw. They were characterized by the marks on their face. I ran at one and slit his throat. He looked at me with bulging eyes, then fell. There were ten of them. I counted. One of my fellow warriors got a gash in his side. His intestines rolled out everywhere.

I heard the scream of kits. Then a wailing. The wailing of queens.

I heard the sweet Raven's song for the last time. The symphony had been cut short by death, apathetic and unfeeling. I soon cried a million tears and howled as a wolf does to the moon.

As soon as I told Goldenstar of the tale, he looked at me in rage. He cut my rations in half and threw me in prison for one moon. I was angered by him. I tried my best. They were gone by the time I got to more than one of them.

There soon came multiple raids. In that one moon, there were five of them. three were on queens, and two on elders. Goldenstar decided to propose a merging of all four clans. Also in that proposal would be to declare all Red Claw members enemies of the one clan: LionClan.

I was released on one condition: I had to fight on the front lines. I knew that one out of 8 made it out alive in the front based on casualties from previous battles. I accepted.

The next battle was Moonpool. The Red Claw had declared war on medicine cats as well because they "wasted clan's resources with doing things any cat could learn and talking to useless dead creeps".

We were not well fed, because there were still one thousand and one hundred cats in the clans in total. I've never liked war, but it beats prison.

The Red Claw was waiting for us. They charged our lines. one hundred on our side, fifty on theirs. They, however, used strategy. This strategy was called the hair strategy: thin your lines and head them towards one point. The casualties on both sides were massive.

I heard it then: the cry of StarClan. They were becoming disconnected from us. One by one, a medicine cat was taken down. The Red Claw drowned themselves. We had suffered many injuries, but also a cut connection to our ancestors.

They all had their brains scattered and organs shredded. This was not war. This was hell. I shuddered.

We went on another campaign: to raid their base. This was based on the siege strategy: keep all food out. Keep the kitties in. We marched down there. We successfully set up a siege line.

We did games, like capturing the prey (a stick) and stuff like that. For my bravery in the previous battle, I was put in charge of four warriors and three apprentices. They became my best friends. I never saw any of them again.

Then fourth day, in at sun high, they broke up our exhausted lines. Our only hope was to head for the heart of their lines. I ordered my warriors to, and they all died. They died violently. I, unfortunately, survived.

I returned to camp for my day of recuperating after a bout of whitecough, and I discovered all but one queen's den out of four had been raided. The clans were losing. There was no hope.

I spent a few days there. I met a lovely she-cat named Thinwhisker. She was kind, and brave. We became mates before I went off to war again.

I went off to war and was demoted for letting my troops die. I was shocked. I was the only reason many of them had gotten out alive. So, what did I do? I deserted.

I came in the middle of the night to get Thinwhisker. We ran off. To this day, that was the best day of our life. We didn't know how bleak it would be in the future. We ran to seek refuge with the tribe temporarily. We even had kits there.

Their names were Flamekit, Graykit, and Amberkit. They were the only thing that kept us going. They still are. They grew up to be very different.

Flamekit was a small ginger she-cat who had hazel eyes. She wasn't good at fighting, so she just cared for the sick. She could've been a good medicine cat. She reminded me of sweet, sweet Ravensong. She had a sort of a way with things. She could tell if something was wrong deep inside or on the outside. She was the most empathetic of the three. She would mourn anyone's sadness, illness, or death as long as they were a cat.

Amberkit was a brown she-cat with amber eyes. She was the thinker of the three, and her strategy was impecable. She analyzed things and came up with explanations or ways to overcome. She got into fights with Greykit a lot and most always won with her strategy.

Graykit was a large light gray tom with darker stripes down his back. He was the fighter of the three. He never took mouth from anyone. He was easily defeated because he showed his weak points, but he was great at hunting.

We returned after sixteen moons. The whole land was destroyed. There was prey everywhere, which was strange to both me and her, because before there wasn't. We stayed there for a while.

At first, we just sat in Goldenstar's old den, next to what once was him. His jaw had fallen off and his eye sockets were empty. He looked almost melancholy. Our kits, now warriors, played outside while we searched for survivors.

For a few days we found nothings, then a few popped up. There were corpses everywhere. We buried some. Others were left alone. We were deeply troubled. How could we stay in such a place, how could we go on?

There were two cats left in the area: a former warrior and an apprentice, a kit when the clan were destroyed.

The warrior was a tortoiseshell she-cat with green eyes who was called Turtlewing. I almost purred at the ironic name. One of my kits became mates with her, and the apprentice was a brownish tom called Redpaw. Redpaw was emotionally scarred. He didn't talk much. Eventually, we accepted us and we accepted him.

We counted the dead. At first it was just a pastime. Then we realized this was clan history. We counted more carefully. There were originally one thousand, two hundred and twenty-two cats. Now there were one thousand and sixty three. We found the remaining ones scattered. Seven died, making one thousand and seventy.

So, what do we do now? Well, we've still got one hundred and forty cats. Maybe clans aren't such a bad idea… I'll talk to Thinwhisker about it in the morning. Everything would have to be moved. Our location, our scent marks, all would be replaced. I guess that it's worth a try. Let me start all over.

A bloodbath… a bloodbath, that's what it was. Sadness overtakes me as I write this. There are one thousand and seventy cats dead. The number has relatively panned out, so we'll start again. We'll rebuild all that was lost, our culture, our relations, our connection to our ancestors. We'll never forget what happened… those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. The past is not the past. It is the future, and now.


End file.
